The background information discussed below is presented to better illustrate the novelty and usefulness of the present invention. This background information is not admitted prior art.
It is well known to attach a variety of rigs such as hydraulically operated rigs above a wellhead. For example, snubbing units are known in the oil and gas industry for facilitating access to a well which is under pressure including, for example, well operations such as well completions. A snubbing unit includes structure and equipment above a wellhead for manipulating tubular components (or simply “tubulars”) such as pipe, tubing, and bottom hole assemblies (BHA) in and out of a well while controlling the well under pressure.
Generally, a snubbing unit employs stationary (lower) and traveling (upper) slip assemblies, opposingly oriented, to releasably and controllably shift tubular components into and out of the well through a wellhead despite the possibility of either heavy tubular loads, which urge the tubular components to fall into the well (also known as “heavy pipe”), or the pressure-generated forces on the tubular components, which urge the tubular components out of the well (also known as “light pipe”). Referring to FIG. 1, the traveling slip assembly may be supported by a jack head, having a traveling plate. In many cases the stationary slip assembly is a dual bowl arrangement with the dual bowls oppositely oriented with slips to hold the tubular component in both axial directions. Likewise, the traveling slip assembly may have a slip bowl with slips that can act in either axial direction, or it has two slip bowls, one oriented in each axial direction.
The snubbing unit is installed above an existing wellhead seal, such as that created by a blow-out preventer (BOP), and often incorporates its own seals to seal the tubular components as they are introduced or removed from the wellhead, such as through the use of a stripping head or annular. The snubbing unit may also be secured to the well head, may be supported solely by the well head or at least partly by a separately prepared structure resting on the earth around the well.
Referring again to FIG. 1, typically a pair of hydraulic cylinders, or jacking rams, are employed to move the jack head, traveling plate and traveling slip assembly of the snubbing unit in a conventional manner, and to controllably shift tubular components into and out of the well in an axial manner through a wellhead. Likewise, the various slip assemblies may be hydraulically actuated to move between an engaged and disengaged orientation; so as to engage the slip assemblies to, or disengage the slips from, any tubular component manipulated by the snubbing unit. As is conventional, the hydraulic actuated slip assemblies are generally supplied with a source of hydraulic power (e.g. hydraulic fluid under pressure) via hydraulic hoses connected to an external hydraulic power source. These hoses may be referred to as slip hydraulic hoses, because they provide hydraulic power to the slips (as opposed to providing hydraulic power to the jacking rams).
Referring once more to FIG. 1, it is also typical that, during wellbore operations when using a snubbing unit, the tubular component or drill string may need to be rotated; e.g. to rotate the string down. For example, the jack head may carry a powered rotary table wherein a rotary motor rotates the travelling slip assembly that is supported on the traveling plate via a bearing or the like. For example, and referring to FIG. 1, rotary motor may drive a gear in the direction labeled R. The rotary motor's gear then drives a gear on the rotary table to drive the traveling slip assembly in the direction labeled R′. If the traveling slip assembly has engaged a tubular, then the tubular would also be rotated in direction labeled R′.
However, in such a case, and to avoid the traveling slip assembly's hydraulic hoses from wrapping all around the snubbing unit and tubulars, these hoses are normally disconnected from the slip assemblies after the slip assembly is set (e.g. after the slips are closed onto the tubular components). With these hydraulic hoses disconnected and out of the way, the tubular component is then rotated as required (using the rotary motor). Once the tubular has been rotated as desired, the hydraulic hoses are then reconnected to the slip assemblies, to actuate the slip assemblies again as desired (e.g. to open up the slips and release the tubular component).
This disconnecting and reconnecting of the hydraulic hoses, to and from the slip assemblies, is a very time consuming and laborious task. Therefore, what is needed is a system or apparatus to reduce or eliminate the need disconnect and reconnect these hydraulic hoses when needing to rotate the tubular components.